The Monthly Memo

August 1, 2001

Dear Colleagues,

Please visit our web page. The site address is heab.state.wi.us.

Points of Interest:

The Joint Finance Committee, Senate, Assembly, and now the Conference Committee each have
reviewed the various student financial aid programs HEAB administers as part of the 2001-03 biennial
budget process. I have attached a spreadsheet that describes funding levels for the various programs
to date. Non funding related changes are as follows:GOVERNOR's Version:

Links funding increases for UW/WTC WHEG and Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program to
the average prior year increase for resident undergraduate tuition at UW System comprehensive
institutions.

Requires DOA (as well as HEAB and other representatives) to undertake a study of the development
and implementation of a tuition grant program that provides state payment of two years of
postsecondary education.

Requires HEAB to develop a plan for implementing a forgivable loan program for farmers who
graduate from UW or WTC.

Requires HEAB to study and report on the cost, desirability, and effectiveness of creating a
student loan forgiveness program to attract workers to the state.

Deletes the renaming of the AES Program to the Governor Thompson Scholarship Program.

Deletes funding for HEAB to upgrade Mainframe System.

ASSEMBLY Version:

Renames the AES Program to the Governor Thompson Scholarship Program.

Allows high schools to offer one AES to an International Baccalaureate Scholar.

Requires DOA (as well as HEAB and other representatives) to undertake a study of the development
and implementation of a tuition grant program that provides state payment of two years of
postsecondary education.

Requires HEAB to develop a plan for implementing a forgivable loan program for farmers who
graduate from UW or WTC.

Requires HEAB to study and report on the cost, desirability, and effectiveness of creating a
student loan forgiveness program to attract workers to the state.

Deletes the renaming of the AES Program to the Governor Thompson Scholarship Program.

Deletes funding for HEAB to upgrade Mainframe System.

Prohibits students from receiving State assistance if they have not registered (if required to)
with the Selective Service System.

The budget is now being reviewed by the Governor for vetoes and signature.

Please note that all ISIR records are being loaded before each notification list run
and/or voucher run. I encourage you to begin making all changes through the federal processor rather
than via file maintenance. You are being encouraged to do this since most recent data received is
what will be reflected on a student's record whether it be from file maintenance or the ISIR file.
In many cases file maintenance data submitted is overridden by ISIR file data when the ISIR file
does not reflect the change included in past file maintenance. To avoid this, please make changes
via the ISIR record rather than via file maintenance.

The past procedure that was to be followed for students who were delinquent in
child support payments stated:

If a student is no longer delinquent in payments, a letter sent to HEAB from the student's county
child support office stating that the student is clear of the specified child support obligations
initiated a contact between HEAB and the Department of Workforce Development Bureau of Child Support
to determine if the student could be cleared of the eligibility hold for state financial assistance.

This was the procedure up until recently when HEAB staff had a phone conference with the Bureau
of Child Support staff to discuss the possible transition to the use of another type of delinquency
list.

Based on that meeting, HEAB can no longer accept letters from the counties to obtain
clearance from the Bureau of Child Support, rather the county has to inform the Bureau of the
change in status. The Bureau will then update their intercept list which is what HEAB uses to place
holds on student records for state financial aid eligibility purposes. Once the student is released
from the Bureau's list, which is sent to HEAB, the financial aid eligibility hold will be released.

Points Related to Processing:

2001-02

2001-02 notification lists and associated reports are scheduled to run 8/7/01, 8/14/01,
8/21/01, and 8/28/01.

2001-02 award commit for WHEG and WTG is as follows:

UW WHEG Award Commit

=

101.95%

(last year at this time it was 89.11%)

WTC WHEG Award Commit

=

110.16%

(last year at this time it was 76.07%)

WTG Award Commit

=

105.65%

(last year at this time it was 104.62%)

The 2001-02 voucher (V) process will begin August 3, 2001. You may begin
sending in voucher requests if you have not already. Please only voucher funds for students who are
registered for coursework.

Please remember to submit TIP nomination forms to Sandy Dercole.

Other Points:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE ARE VARIOUS POINTS THAT WERE INCLUDED IN PREVIOUS MONTHLY MEMOS. THESE
CONTINUE TO BE INCLUDED ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD REMINDERS.

Here are a few tips for bringing in your electronic Notification Files:

set all margins to 0.25"

set paper orientation to landscape

set font to Courier (or Lucida Console if you have it)

set point size to 9

If you encounter problems opening the file directly from email, try saving it to your
server or hard drive using either Notepad or WordPad to open it. If this doesn't work, please give
Barb Moermond a call at (608) 266-3091 and she will work with you to try to find a solution.

If your school transfers data to HEAB via an FTP site, please notify Barb Moermond at
barbara.moermond@heab.state.wi.us as soon as
possible whenever any changes in your FTP set-up, software, IP, etc. occur. Once notified, Barb will
make all the necessary changes that need to be made at our end in order for HEAB to continue to be
able to transfer data to and from your school.

To all schools using the HEAB templates for file maintenance and voucher requests:
Please refer to the Information for Financial Aid Administrators section
on the HEAB web page (http://HEAB.state.wi.us) where you will find the formatting guides for both
templates. Please use the guides and verify that both templates are formatted exactly the way the
guides indicate. There have been an increasing number of problems with files not being formatted
properly when they had been fine previously and this means that the file maintenance changes and/or
voucher requests that have been submitted aren't going through. Please contact Barb Moermond
(barbara.moermond@HEAB.state.wi.us) if you
have any questions.

Effective March 5, 2001, our production schedule began loading all File Maintenance and
ISIR records received to date on both Tuesday and Friday nights of each week just prior to
vouchering. In the past ISIR data was loaded every other Monday night prior to the notification run
on Tuesdays.

An "exception processing system" was put in place effective March 20, 2001, for
"exception adds." We expect to have a newly designed template that will require all data element
information necessary for our student record to be included. This template will be available for use
when extraordinary circumstances occur and will need to be submitted directly to the Program
Coordinator for their review.

Currently the majority of schools receive an electronic version of the notification
list. We are in the process of working with the remaining schools who receive paper lists so that
all schools receive the electronic notification list. Once all schools have converted to the
electronic notification list, it is our intention to eliminate paper notification lists. Sending
electronic notification lists to all schools and eliminating all paper lists will allow us to send
the notification list once a week.

We believe that with the above changes, concerns that have been provided through your feedback
will be addressed. We will continue to accept all File Maintenance "changes." Only the acceptance of
"adds" has been discontinued. We expect to obtain all new record or student information via Federal
ISIR files.

There have been a number of schools who have been sending file maintenance for students
who are not enrolled at their school. Therefore, new awards keep recalculating based on file
maintenance sent in by the school where the student is not attending. The school where the
student is attending has to keep sending file maintenance to correct what the other school
has sent. To eliminate this problem, please only send file maintenance for students who you know are
attending or plan to attend your school.

When you send file maintenance, which includes contribution changes, you must always
include the SC and PC along with the new EFC for dependent students. This is important for
maintaining our internal student system particularly when working with the TIP grant.

Please be aware that it is not necessary for schools to submit an award amount via
file maintenance. This information is not used. Including this information consumes resources both
at HEAB and at your school. Awards are calculated prior to each voucher and re-calculations are
triggered by changes to any of the five key fields (dependency status, year in school, marital
status, household size and EFC).

Please note that the only proper procedure for correcting a student's Social Security
number is to submit a separate email to the general HEAB address (
heabmail@heab.state.wi.us). Please include the student's name, the incorrect number, and the
correct number. Also, please remember that when you submit a Delete for a student, you are deleting
your school from the student's record, NOT the student's record from our system.

For schools whose students receive WTG funding: If you have students with "special
tuitions," please identify those students with their special tuition WTG code each time file
maintenance is submitted for them.

If your school receives the electronic report file of the notification list, please
note that a 1 in the child support column means that the student is delinquent (1 = DELQ).

Please be aware that if you request a disbursement of less than $250 for a term or a
semester or if the student has used nine semesters of eligibility, the voucher request is manually
handled through a "special voucher" which is run on Wednesday nights.

Also be aware that you cannot voucher funds for a student you just sent FAFSA changes
for to the federal processor. Please voucher funds for students after they are reflected on the
notification list. Our agency will calculate an award the Tuesday or Friday night after file
maintenance is received or after the student is loaded from the federal record. However, the
notification list which communicates the student award to you is run every Tuesday. Please keep all
of this in mind when you are making student record changes or vouchering funds. Please also keep in
mind that we calculate awards on the most recent information that is received either through file
maintenance or from the federal processor.

Just another reminder that students can receive up to ten semesters of a combination of
WHEG/WTG rather than ten semesters of each.

Please be aware of the following errors that have been made in the processing of
refunds. The errors fall into two categories:

Schools returning more money for a student than was originally vouchered.

Schools sending in duplicate refunds.

Please take a moment before sending in refunds to check and make sure that:

You are returning the proper amount.

You have identified the proper program.

That the same refund has not been sent to us previously.

The next training sessions will be held:

September 20, 2001

The program begins at 10:00 a.m. and ends no later than 3:00 p.m. It is held at the HEAB offices
at 131 W. Wilson St, Suite 902, Madison, WI. We have room for up to 6 people at each session.

If you want to register for a session or need more information, please call Jim Buske at (608)
267-9865 or send email to james.buske@heab.state.wi.us.

Per the "budget target policy" an increase of zero and one percent over FY01 GPR Program
Funding was requested in Version A. However, if funds do become available financial assistance
programs administered by the Higher Educational Aids Board (HEAB) for postsecondary education
should become a priority as Version B Budget Request indicates.

Note: In order to fund needy students to the statutory program maximum, the programs
listed below would need to increase by the following amounts in each 2001-02 and 2002-03 fiscal
years. This is in addition to the amounts indicated in Version B.

PROGRAM

2001-02

2002-03

Wisconsin Higher Education Grant-WTC

14,786,128

14,786,128

Wisconsin Higher Education Grant-UW

11,151,177

11,151,177

Talent Incentive Grant

2,657,242

2,657,242

*

Funded through gaming funds rather than GPR.

**

Also includes $62,000 each fiscal year due to statutory change ss 39.41
(dm) (em). (Governor's Version includes a fund increase to reflect a reestimate of the amount
required to fully fund the program in the 2001-03 biennium.)

***

MTEC annual tuition has not increased over the three years this
program has been in existence.